Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Well,
as I have said, repeatedly, nothing is simple in the world of the UFO. Skeptics
have made a big deal out of a letter written by Dr. James McDonald in which he
quotes from his 1970 interview with Delbert Newhouse that he, Newhouse, was
“…positive they had cut the first 10 or 20 feet [of the film], which were shot
when the objects were very much closer…” There was also discussion by Newhouse
that he had not received the original film back and that seems to be borne out
by various letters and memos contained in the Project Blue Book files.

Given
a review of McDonald’s letter, it seemed that Newhouse, at best was confused
and confabulating and at worse telling lies to strengthen his case. One of the
major points was that the Air Force had altered his film. I wrote:

The
real point where this falls apart, at least for me, is when Newhouse began
talking to McDonald about his film. Here is the one thing that is well
documented in the Project Blue Book files and for the believers we have the statements
made by Newhouse himself about the film when he submitted it to the Air Force…

So
we talked about the length of the film and how it doesn’t seem that it had been
altered. Everything pointed to there being some thirty feet of film of the UFOs
and then additional vacation footage that was removed and returned to Newhouse.
Everything in the Blue Book file seemed to line up and showed that Newhouse was
mistaken.

Before
we go on, I should point out that I was using a microfilm copy of the Project
Blue Book files and according to the available index, the Tremonton case is on
Roll 11. It is the first case there. The last case on Roll 10, according to the
index was from Phoenix, Arizona.

The
thing is, it seemed that some of the Blue Book file on Tremonton was missing,
so I put Roll 10 in the microfilm reader, and found more documents that were
part of the that case. All this would be irrelevant had it not been for an
unsigned and undated document on Roll 10 that was addressed to “L/C [Lt. Col.]
Adams w/orig film 10/22/52.”

This
was a list of requirements for the Air Force investigation of the Tremonton
Movie and point number five is the part that is relevant to us. It said, “The
loose (unspliced) portion of 17 frames belongs at the end of the footage having
a deep blue background and no sound track. The last frame of this loose portion
is immediately adjacent to the splice with the broken frame having the sound
track.”

The
17 frames comprise about one second of film and it was noted that it should go
at the end of the film when the objects were farther away as opposed to the
beginning when Newhouse said they were closer. We also know that the Air Force
cut off the last 20 feet of film which was Newhouse vacation footage and had
nothing to do with the UFO sighting.

What
does this mean?

Well,
if we attempt to look at it dispassionately, we see that Newhouse was correct
when he said the film had been altered. True, he was saying the first 10 or 20
feet were missing but it was the last 20 that had been cut off. It had nothing
to do with the UFOs, but after nearly 20 years, it seems reasonable for
Newhouse to say that the film had been cut and some was missing.

That,
of course, doesn’t quite match what he was claiming, and it was only the
vacation footage… at least that was reasonable until we find this other memo.
Now we know that some of the UFO footage was “loose” from the rest of it and we
don’t know if the prints of the film that circulated afterward, especially
those that leaked into the civilian world, had those frames reattached.

The
thing we have to remember is that the documents now available to us were
written at the time and I believe that those writing them didn’t think of the
future or who might have access to them in the future. In other words, they
were candid in what they said rather than trying to “talk around” a point. Had
they detached a longer segment of the film from the beginning, I believe the
description in the files would have related this. In this case, however, I
suspect that the missing frames reveal nothing that can’t be seen on the rest
of the film.

However,
this does seem to strengthen, to a degree, Newhouse’s statements to McDonald
some twenty (or 18) years after the fact. He said the film was altered, he said
that frames were missing, and he was correct about both those things.

Is
all this enough for us to now accept as real everything else he said after the
fact?

Well,
no. It points out that his memory was accurate to a point, but the details, the
minutia of the sighting, still seems to be slightly in error. There is no
evidence that any footage is missing from the beginning of the film, but there
is footage missing from the film as documented in the Blue Book file... or
rather that some 17 frames was detached from the original film.

What
this does is add a little bit of strength to the overall case, showing that
Newhouse was correct about some of what he said. It doesn’t really move the bar
very far but moves it a little. For some that will be enough but for others it
won’t matter at all. I just point this out for the sake of clarity in an
otherwise complicated case.

Monday, December 23, 2013

I
had noticed over the last few months that there were fewer posts to UFO UpDates
than there had been in recent years. I’m not sure why there was a decline, but
there is fallout from it. Errol Bruce-Knapp who ran the list for many, many
years, has posted the following:

Not, perhaps, the merriest Christmas news for
some subscribers and readers to/of UFO UpDates, but the time has come...

The world has moved on, apparently beyond the need of a centralised service
such as this List - witness the dramatic drop in List-bound traffic of the last
few years.

So, the plan is to mothball the List and for Glenn Campbell to take-back the
Archive, by this coming New Year's Day, via his hosting company. Glenn wrote
the script that made the Archive work and originally hosted it. The
post@ufoupdateslist.com will also be retired at the end of the year.

The Archive's addresses - depending on how you access it - should not change.
Nor should the search facility. "Should",because until we actually
move the Archive we won't know.

I'm grateful to all those who contributed 90,00+ posts to UFO UpDates over
these many years, increasing the awareness and knowledge of the phenomena and
my 'ufological' education.

My thanks to Glenn Campbell for his advice and support over the years and for taking
over the Archive for the benefit of succeeding generations of the 'seriously
interested'.

I've been retired for the past six years tho' there are still things on my
bucket list to be completed, such as the digitising and uploading of several
hundred hours of my Strange Days... Indeed radio program to
virtuallystrange.net ...

Trusting that all will be revealed, eventually,

Errol Bruce-Knapp
Late-Moderator of UFO UpDates - Toronto

Facebook & Twitter
errolbk_at_virtuallystrange.net

Over the years the discussions have
sometimes been acrimonious, sometimes heated but always interesting. It was a
way to communicate with fellow travelers, a way to see rich and divergent
points of view, and to learn a little about some of the more obscure cases.
Errol, as moderator often directed the conversation and eliminated some of the
more heated comments, keeping the list on a fairly even keel. It was a fun way
to start a day, seeing what others had to say about the world of UFOs.

For
Errol, this was truly a labor of love because I can think of no other reason
someone would devote so much time to the list. He kept it going, gently
reminding the subscribers of the rules and generating controversy. I know that
I used the list to learn more about specific cases, engaged in dialogue with a
wide range of researchers around the world, and to expand my horizons.

UFO
UpDates was a fine source of information and controversy and I have missed it
in the last year. In fact, just the other day I noticed that it had been a long
time since I had seen anything from it. I’m sad to see it go, but I wish Errol
the best and thank him for providing the resource and keeping it going for so
long.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Here’s
an interesting question that is generated by the recent discussions of Delbert
Newhouse and his UFO footage. There are those on the skeptical side of the
fence who reject his close up description of objects that were gunmetal-colored
disks because that description doesn’t appear in the written record until
nearly two years after the fact. One debunker seemed to be outraged that I had
mentioned that this was what Newhouse told me because I didn’t talk to him
until 1976. Of course, I was merely pointing out that I had talked to him and
that this description of the UFOs had come from him rather than a survey of the
literature, which, of course, makes that first-hand testimony regardless of
when gathered.

The
theory among the debunkers is that Newhouse embellished his sighing to make it
more interesting for some obscure personal reasons. Maybe he didn’t want to be
identified as a Navy officer who couldn’t identify sea gulls when he saw them.
Maybe he was embarrassed by the identification made by those who apparently
never bothered to interview him and only believed what they read in the Project
Blue Book files. Maybe Newhouse wanted to increase the importance of his
sighting.

Yes,
we all understand that memories are often flawed and that they can be
unconsciously embellished over time in a process that is known as
confabulation. That means simply that the mind has filled in details that might
not have been observed. The witness is not lying in the classical sense, is not
aware that he or she is not relating reality, and truly believes what he or she
says about the situation.

So,
what does this have to do with Project Mogul and double standards?

Well,
there are those on the skeptical side of the fence who believe that a Project
Mogul array fell near Roswell, was partially recovered by Mack Brazel, and that
is what caused all the fuss about a crashed alien spacecraft. Ironically, and
ignored by those same skeptics is the theory that is refuted by the written
records made at the time. Never mind that because Charles Moore, one of the engineers
who worked on Project Mogul told us all that he remembered that flight, that it
was the first successful balloon flight in New Mexico, and the reason for the
delay in identifying it was because Project Mogul was so highly classified that
he hadn’t heard the name until Robert Todd told him in 1992 (we, of course,
know that the name appeared in the records made at the time in 1946 and 1947 which
is one of the first indications that Moore might not be relating reality to us).

To
flog this dead horse, I will repeat what we all know. According to the written
record Mogul Flight No. 4 was cancelled. There is no equivocation about it. The
flight was cancelled, which should be the end of the story… but no, Albert
Crary’s diary, the written record and part of the source material, mentions
that a cluster of balloons was flown on the date in question. This is Flight
No. 4. We know this because Moore told us so fifty years after the fact and his
memory, which is in conflict with the written record, is acceptable, while
Newhouse’s memory is not.

Charles
Moore, who knew exactly what that cluster of balloons was, told everyone that
this was actually Flight No. 4. And although the Mogul flights were not
scheduled before dawn in June 1947, Flight No. 4 was launched, not at dawn, but
around 3:00 in the morning, according to Moore. Why? Because a weather front
went through Alamogordo about dawn and the weather data from it suggest that
the balloon trajectory would have not been toward the Brazel ranch. However, if
it was launched about 3:00, then the winds aloft data can be used to predict a
path toward Corona, New Mexico and the Brazel ranch.

The
documentation from the New York University balloon project shows that the first
successful flight in New Mexico was Flight No. 5. But Moore claimed that Flight
No. 4 was just as successful; they just didn’t record it. If it was as
successful, then why not record it and tout it as the first successful flight
in New Mexico? Why not report the data collected rather than leave it out of
the record altogether. Why would Crary say the flight had been cancelled if it
had actually flown and was successful?

Because
a cluster of balloons was just that… a cluster of balloons. We know from later
entries what that means. When flights were cancelled, they sometimes conducted
experiments using some of the balloons and equipment. So, Flight No. 4 was not
launched in the dark, which would have violated the CAA regulations under which
they operated, and was cancelled because of clouds at dawn, which was demanded
by the CAA. If it was cancelled at dawn, then how could it be launched some
three hours earlier at 3:00?

Let’s
also remember that Moore had originally calculated the launch time as about
5:00 a.m. because that was dawn in New Mexico in July 1947, and Flight No. 5
was launched just after 5:00 the next day. That was, of course, before the
winds aloft data ruled out the dawn launch. And, explain how it would make
sense to say that the flight was cancelled but it was launched before the
clouds became an issue… well, obviously this is true because that is what
Charles Moore remembered fifty years after the fact and his memories of those
long ago events are not flawed.

Oh,
so we don’t get lost in arguments over source material, in his 1995 paper,
Moore calculated the launch time as about 5:00 but in the Benson, Saler,
Zieler, and Moore book, ironically called UFO
Crash at Roswell: Genesis of a Modern
Myth, on page 102, he changes the time. What we have here is clear evidence
of Moore changing the times, not based on newer and better evidence, but on his
memory to prove his own theory... or maybe I should say his alleged memory
because there is no documentation to support the earlier launch.

The
documentation available from that time also tells us that the CAA governed the
launch of these Mogul balloon trains because they were some 600 or so feet long
and would be a threat to aerial navigation. They couldn’t be launched when
there were clouds to hide them and they couldn’t be launched at night because
pilots wouldn’t be able to see them. The rules and regulations in place in 1947
are clear and the documentation is clear on those points.

True,
in July, as they worked the project and the length of the arrays was reduced
considerably, these factors were altered, but in June, they were in place. They
couldn’t launch at night and they couldn’t launch because of clouds, so Flight
No. 4 was cancelled. Until Moore said otherwise and we can believe him because
it is true that he would never embellish his self-proclaimed place in history
as the man who launched the Roswell wreck.

Here’s
another interesting side note. There was a discussion about NOTAMs, which are
Notices to Airmen about information that would be important for aviation
safety. The launches of these arrays required a NOTAM to be filed, but Moore
said that no NOTAM had been filed for Flight No. 4 because they expected it to
remain over restricted airspace on the Alamogordo (White Sands Proving Ground)
ranges until it was above normal aviation operating altitudes or something
around 30,000 feet. The questions are: why would he remember that, and why
should we believe him?

I
could go on, but is there a point? We know, based on the records that Flight
No. 4 was cancelled and that the cluster of balloons does not a Mogul array
make. We know that the flight did not fly at 3:00 in the morning, but had it
been launched then, it would have been noted as being launched then and there
wouldn’t be the note that it had been cancelled. We know what the cluster was,
based on other entries, and Moore had to know that as well but just made
contradictory statements about it anyway. (In 1995, Moore acknowledged that a
valid interpretation of Crary’s diary was that Flight No. 4 was cancelled.)

I
say that if you reject Newhouse because his later statements about the length
of his movie disagree with the documentation made within weeks of his shooting
it, then Moore’s statements about Mogul Flight No. 4 can be rejected because
they are in conflict with the written record. I really don’t see any difference
here. In both cases we have statements made after the fact, years after the fact,
which are contradicted by information gathered at the time.

I just want to see the same
standards applied to both sides of the coin. But I will say this in defense of
Newhouse. I don’t believe (please note the qualification here) Newhouse was
consciously changing his story and there is some evidence to back that up. For
example, only about 40 seconds of his movie was released, meaning that some 35
seconds are not readily available. I think he believed he was telling the truth…
Moore knew what he was doing and deliberately misled us all in his attempt to
be the man who launched the Roswell case. What I don’t understand is how anyone
looking at the facts can believe that Moore and Mogul had anything to do with
Roswell. Remember, that doesn’t prove it was alien, only that this particular
explanation has failed… based on the documentation and not on the fifty year
old memories of one man

Thursday, December 12, 2013

I
hadn’t planned on doing this simply because it was more work at this point than
I wanted to take on, but there seems to be a real interest in the film and
there is a lot of misinformation floating around about it. These are
distortions that I believe are lodged in the belief structures of the various
commentators rather than in the facts of the case. I’m using as many of the
original sources as possible, including the reports of others who interviewed
the photographer after the event, sometimes years afterwards and will point out
that when I interviewed him, I just wanted to confirm that he had told others
what they had reported he told them.

The
film was shot by Navy warrant officer Delbert C. Newhouse north of the small
Utah town of Tremonton, Utah (though it has been spelled Trementon by many over
the years). He provided a brief statement to the Air Force about the case that
is woefully inadequate and I’m not sure why no one in the Air Force attempted
to get something a little more comprehensive from him about the shape of the objects.
According to the Project Blue Book files:

Driving from Washington, D.C. to Portland, Ore., on the morning of 2
July my wife noticed a group of objects in the sky that she could not identify.
She asked me to stop the car and look. There was a group of about ten or twelve
objects - that bore no relation to anything I had seen before - milling about
in a rough formation and proceeding in a westerly direction. I opened the
luggage compartment of the car and got my camera out of a suitcase. Loading it
hurriedly, I exposed approximately thirty feet of film. There was no reference
point in the sky and it was impossible for me to make any estimate of speed,
size, altitude or distance. Toward the end one of the objects reversed course
and proceeded away from the main group. I held the camera still and allowed
this single one to cross the field of view, picking it up again and repeating
for three or four such passes. By this time all of the objects had disappeared.
I expendedthe balance of the film late that afternoon on a mountain
somewhere in Idaho.

When
he finished with the filming, he put the equipment away and they all got back
in the car to continue the trip. Then, apparently after arriving at his new
duty station, developed the film and sent the original off to Hill Air Force
Base in Utah which eventually sent it on to Project Blue Book in Dayton, Ohio. According
to the Condon Committee report (on page 420 of the Bantam paperback edition)
William Hartmann, the investigator wrote, “The witness’s original letter of 11 August
offers the film for whatever value it may have in connection with your
investigation of the so-called flying saucers.”

And
while all that is interesting, it turns out not to be the most important thing in
that letter. Newhouse wrote, “(1) one (1) fifty-foot roll of processed 16mm
color motion picture film.”

Ed
Ruppelt, the chief of Project Blue Book at the time wrote, “When I received the
Tremonton films I took them right over to the Wright Field photo lab, along
with the Montana Movie [a short, color film shot over Great Falls in
1950 showing two bright lights], and the photo technicians and I ran them
twenty or thirty times. The two movies were similar in that in both of them the
objects appeared to be large, circular lights – in neither one could you see
any detail. But, unlike the Montana Movie, the lights in the Tremonton Movie would
fade out, then come back in again. This fading immediately suggested airplanes
reflecting light, but the roar of a king-sized dogfight could have been heard
for miles and the Newhouse family heard no sound.”

The
inadequate statement provided in the letter with the film didn’t tell much and
according to Ruppelt, they sent a list of questions to an intelligence officer.
This interview was conducted on September 10, 1952, and included not only
Newhouse, but his wife, Norma; son, Delbert Newhouse, Jr. then aged 14 and
daughter Anne, then aged 12. This interview did nothing to clear up the
questions that we would have so many years later and, according to Ruppelt,
“The question ‘What did the UFO’s look like?’ wasn’t one of them because when
you have a picture of something you don’t normally ask what it looks like.”

The
answers to the questions were received by teletype on September 12 and do
little to resolve the questions of today. I don’t know why certain things were
not asked and why certain information is not found in the files. While Ruppelt
explained why they hadn’t asked what the objects looked like, I also noted that
there is no real description of the length of the film. Going through the
Project Blue Book files, I found a few, vague references to the film being
about thirty feet long, which, given the frames per second rate, works out to
about 75 seconds. William Hartmann, who conducted the investigation for the
Condon Committee in the late 1960s, wrote, “The film contains about 1200
frames… i.e. about 75 seconds…”

According
to the teletype, all the Newhouses were interviewed at home and the answers to
the questions were as follows:

1.
No sound heard during the observation. 2. No exhaust trails or contrails
observed. 3. No aircraft, birds, balloons, or other identifiable objects seen
in the air immediately before, during, or immediately after observation. 4.
Single object which detached itself from the group did head in direction
opposite original course and disappeared from view while still traveling in
this direction. 5. Camera pointed at estimated 70 degrees elevation and
described and [sic] arc from approx. [sic] due east to due west then from due
west to approx. 60 degrees from north in photographing detached obj [sic]
heading in direction opposite original course. 6. Sun was approx overhead of
observer. Objects were approx. 70 degrees above terrain on a course several
miles from observer. 7. Weather conditions: Bright sunlight, clear, approx. 80
degrees temperature, slight breeze from east northeast approx. 3 to 5 mph. 8.
No meteorological activity noted during that day. 9. Opinion regarding objects
following CLN [sic] A. Light from objects caused by reflection: B. Objects
appeared approx. as long as they were wide and thin, C. Appeared identical in
shape, D. 12 to 14 objects, E. All appeared light color, F. No opinion, G.
Appeared to have same type of motion except one object which reversed its
course, H. Disappeared from view by moving out of range of eyesight. 10. No
filters used. 11. One low hill 2 or 3 miles to right of US HWY 30 dash S with
observer facing north. Located approx. 10 miles north of Tremonton, Utah. 12.
Other persons sighting object [names of wife, children]. Whole Newhouse family
included in interview. 13. CPO [sic s/b CWO] Newhouse and family have never
sighted unidentified flying objects before. Newhouse stated that he never
believed he would join the ranks of those reporting such objects prior to this
observation… CPO [sic] Newhouse stated he has been in the Naval service for
over 19 years with service as a commissioned officer during WW 2…

From
this point, the Blue Book file is filled with questions about the technical
aspects of the film and the camera. On one document, in which it was revealed
that Newhouse had not used a tripod, someone underscored that and added an
exclamation point.

The
Air Force analysis, done in the months following the sighting, did not yield
any positive results. According to Ruppelt, “All they had to say was, ‘We don’t
know what they are but they aren’t aircraft or balloons, and we don’t think
they are birds.”

It
would seem that the next time that Newhouse was interviewed about the sighting
in depth was when he met with Ruppelt as they were shooting the commercial film
Unidentified Flying Objects, aka UFO. Ruppelt wrote about that meeting in
his book The Report onUnidentified Flying Objects. Ruppelt
said:

After
I got out of the Air Force I met Newhouse and talked to him for two hours [in
1954, I believe]. I’ve talked to many people who have reported UFOs, but few
impressed me as much as Newhouse. I learned that when he and his family first
saw the UFOs they were close to the car, much closer than when he took the
movie. To use Newhouse’s own words, “If they had been the size of a B-29 they
would have been at 10,000 feet altitude.” And the Navy man and his family had
taken a good look at the objects – they looked like “two pie pans, one inverted
on the top of the other!” He didn’t just think
the UFO’s were disk-shaped; he knew
that they were; he had plainly seen them. I asked him why he hadn’t told this
to the intelligence officer who interrogated him. He said that he had. Then I
remember that I’d sent the intelligence officer a list of questions I wanted
Newhouse to answer. The question “What did the UFO’s look like?” wasn’t one of
them because when you have a picture of something you don’t normally ask what
it looks like. Why the intelligence officer didn’t pass this information along
to us I’ll never know.

The
next mention of Newhouse’s experience came in January 1953, when the Robertson
Panel, a CIA sponsored study of UFOs was made. Because there was physical evidence
available, meaning the film, it was one of those reports they wanted to review.
Luis Alvarez, one of the scientists involved, asked that the film be run
several times and then suggested that the objects looked to him like sea gulls
riding on thermals. The rest of the panel agreed with him and that was the
answer they appended to the case.

Ruppelt,
in his book wrote that they, meaning those at Blue Book and ATIC had thought of
the birds explanation months earlier. He wrote, “…several months later I as in
San Francisco… and I watched gulls soaring in a cloudless sky. They were
‘riding a thermal,’ and they were so high that you couldn’t see them until they
banked just a certain way; then they appeared to be a bright white flash, much
larger than one would expect from sea gulls. There was a strong resemblance to
the UFO’s in the Tremonton Movie. But I’m not sure this is the answer.”

Also
found in the Project Blue Book files, and dated 1955, is a report, “Analysis of
Photographic Material Photogrammetric Analysis of the ‘Utah’ Film, Tracking
UFO’s,” created for the Douglas Aircraft Company and written by Dr. R. M. L.
Baker. He provides an overview of the sighting that is consistent with the
earlier reports found in the Blue Book file, but then wrote, “He [Newhouse]
described them as ‘gun metal colored objects shaped like two saucers, one
inverted over the other.’”

Baker’s
conclusion written on May 16, 1956, or nearly four years after the sighting,
was, “The evidence remains rather contradictory and no single hypothesis of a
natural phenomenon yet suggested seems to completely account for the UFO
involved. The possibility of multiple hypotheses, i.e. that the Utah UFO’s are
the result of two simultaneous natural phenomena might possibly yield the
answer. However… no definite conclusion could be obtained.”

But
even this isn’t without controversy. Tim Printy at his skeptics web site wrote:

In
1955, Dr. Robert Baker conducted an evaluation of the film and also interviewed
Newhouse again. Newhouse now added more information that seemed to disagree
with his earlier testimony.

When
he got out, he observed the objects (twelve to fourteen of them) to be directly
overhead and milling about. He described them as ‘gun metal colored objects
shaped like two saucers, one inverted on top of the other.’ He estimated that
they subtended ‘about the same angle as B29’s at 10,000 ft.’ (about half a
degree i.e. about the angular diameter of the moon.”

In
his earliest reports he stated that he could not estimate size or distance, now
he was able to do this as well as describe the shape. Newhouse suggests before
filming they appeared overhead and then went off in the distance when he
finally got the camera going.

A
close reading of the various sources including Ruppelt’s book and the Condon
Committee report does not support the conclusion that Newhouse was giving any
different answers. Baker’s source seemed not to be a new interview, but what
Newhouse had told Ruppelt in 1954 and that Newhouse was not saying the objects
were the size of B-29s at ten thousand feet, but looked to be the size of the
bomber if it was at that altitude. It was the same as a witness describing a
UFO as the size of a dime held at arm’s length.

At
the same time, that is 1956, the Air Force, in response to the release of UFO, put together a press package to
explain some of the cases mentioned in the film. At that point the Air Force
endorsed the “birds” explanation, and that is the way it is carried in the Blue
Book records. The documents suggest that the Air Force was more interested in
lessening the impact of the movie than they were in supplying proper solutions
to the cases. In other words, their acceptance of the birds explanation was a
public relations ploy.

The
next analysis came when the Condon Committee conducted its investigation in the
late 1960s. William Hartmann added little of importance to the case. He noted
the length of the film, which agreed with the claim that the sequence was about
30 feet long or about 75 seconds. Lance Moody had suggested that if the film
could be recovered now, the length could be measured, which would answer some
questions that have developed in the last few years. The problem is that Air
Force file makes it clear the film had been cut. On September 15, 1952, Major
Robert E. Kennedy sent Newhouse a letter saying, “The final footage of the
mountain scenery will be detached and returned to you as soon as possible.”
This point too, would become important later.

Hartmann
reviewed all the information available, including, apparently, a complete copy
of the Project Blue Book file. He provided a quick history of the
investigations and did mention that during Baker’s earlier investigation
Newhouse provided “…substantially the same account, with the additional
information: ‘When he got out [of the car], he observed the objects (twelve to
fourteen of them) to be directly overhead and milling about. He described them
as ‘gun metal colored objects, shaped like two saucers, one inverted of top of
the other.’…”

Hartmann
then made his own analysis, finally concluding, “These observations give strong
evidence that the Tremonton films do show birds… and I now regard the objects
as so identified.”

But
this comes only after Hartmann rejected the statements by Newhouse seeing the
objects at close range. Hartmann wrote, “The strongest negative argument was
stated later by the witness that the objects were seen to subtend an angle of
about 0.5 degrees and were then seen as gun metal colored and shaped like two
saucers held together rim to rim, but the photographs and circumstances
indicate that this observation could not have been meaningful.”

Baker,
in 1969 and in response to the negative findings of the Condon Committee, at a
symposium sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science
said that while Hartmann’s analysis might be appealing “[The] motion [of the
objects] is not what one would expect from a flock of soaring birds; there are
erratic brightness fluctuations, but there is no indication of periodic
decreases in brightness due to turning with the wind or flapping. No cumulus
clouds are shown on the film that might betray the presence of thermal updraft…
The motion pictures I have taken of birds at various distances have no
similarity to the Utah film.”

Now
the case becomes more complicated. In 1970, Dr. James E. McDonald interviewed
Newhouse over the telephone, with his wife on the extension. In a letter to
Arthur C. Lundahl and found on the NICAP web site, McDonald wrote:

It
was particularly good to have Mrs. Newhouse on the phone, since she was the one
who first spotted the objects and watched them for an estimated minute or so
while she was trying to persuade Newhouse to stop the car for a better look…

Both
of them emphasized that it must have taken two or three minutes for Newhouse to
hunt through their luggage and locate the camera and film, which were in
separate suitcases. In the initial period, the objects were considerably closer
to them than at the time he finally began shooting, Newhouse stressed. It was
his estimate that the objects lay only about 10 degrees east of their zenith
when they first got out of the car. He reported his angular-size estimate that
has been noted elsewhere, namely about the comparative size of a B-17 at 10,000ft…

…
[O]ne of the key points that I wanted to check with Newhouse concerned the
description given by Ruppelt… namely, that they appeared to be silvery-gray,
“gunmetal”, and like two pie pans face-to-face. Both Newhouse and his wife
fully confirmed that, Newhouse comparing the shape to a discus…

I
asked Newhouse if it was correct that he had given that description to Ruppelt
after the latter had left the Air Force. He confirmed that, saying that the
only time he personally talked to Ruppelt was at a filming session for that
movie entitles “UFO” produced in 1954 or 1955. He guessed that meeting must
have been in 1954, and Al Chop was also present at that discussion. He brought
out the important point that he had also stressed the visually observed shape
in those early portions of the sighting, when he was interviewed at his duty
station in Oakland by an Air Force officer. He further remarked that he saw a
copy of the officer’s transcript of the interview, and that point appeared in
the transcript…

…A
rather interesting point, which I have never seen brought out before, was
mentioned, almost by happenstance. It turned out that the footage which
Newhouse submitted to the Air Force was spliced from about 20 feet that he shot
at the end of one 50-foot magazine, plus about 40 feet that he shot on the
first part of the next magazine. In other words, he had to change magazine in
the middle of that shooting…

Newhouse
said that the Air Force didn’t send the originals back to him at any time. He
wrote ATIC when a long time had elapsed, and what they did finally send back to
him was a color print which he stressed was distinctly inferior to the
original. Not only that, but he was positive that they had cut out the first 10
or 20 feet, which were shot when the objects were very much closer and appeared
much sharper on the film… The missing footage, which he seemed positive was
from the earliest and best parts of his original…

I
found it interesting to learn that no contacts of any sort have been made with
Newhouse since that movie was made. This evidently included Baker, as well as
Hartmann and the Condon Project team. I was particularly surprised that Bob
Baker had not contacted him…

There
are some things that we can deduce from all this. First, strangely, in the
original interviews, there is no indication that anyone asked Newhouse or his
family what the objects looked like. The statement he supplied as he submitted
the film is devoid of any important information other than time and location.
He does not describe the objects in any way other than to say, “…that bore no
relation to anything I had seen before…”

The
point to be made here is that Newhouse had more than 19 years of service in the
Navy and it is reasonable to assume that he had seen sea gulls soaring in the
past. It would seem that if five minutes or so passed during the sighting,
which includes 75 seconds of the filming, sea gulls would have revealed
themselves as such at some point. If he saw them at close range, as he claims,
then the sea gull explanation fails.

Newhouse
told McDonald that he had told the intelligence officer about the shape and
that the description had been included in the transcript of the interview.
There is nothing like that in the Project Blue Book file, which means one of
two things: Either Newhouse is mistaken or the transcript was removed from the
files.

Although
some believe that Newhouse didn’t mention the shape until more than twenty
years later when I interviewed him, it is clear that Newhouse was talking about
the shape within two years. He told Ruppelt that he had told that to the
intelligence officer, but there is nothing to back up the claim. The best we
can say was that he mentioned it in 1954 and was consistent in those statements
from that point. His original statement does not preclude the observation, only
that it can’t be documented in the Project Blue Book file.

The
criticism that Newhouse was unable to give size, distance and shape estimates
at first but later came up with them is invalid. It is quite clear he was
merely saying that the objects appeared to be the size of a bomber at 10,000
feet. The description he offered the September interview suggests a circular
object (or one that is square or diamond shaped and very thin) isn’t very
helpful. In fact, given that vague information, it would seem that someone,
Newhouse, his wife or children, would have said something more definitive.

The
real point where this falls apart, at least for me, is when Newhouse began
talking to McDonald about his film. Here is the one thing that is well
documented in the Project Blue Book files and for the believers we have the
statements made by Newhouse himself about the film when he submitted it to the
Air Force.

First,
when he submitted the film, he made it clear there was a single enclosure and
that was a fifty foot roll of film. The document was created by Newhouse so
there is no reason to dispute it. It says nothing about there being more than
fifty feet of film or that it was a spliced film. Just the whole roll that
included some of his vacation pictures and that it had been processed.

Second,
there is Major Kennedy’s letter of September 15, in which he mentioned the
final footage of the mountain scenery would be “detached” and returned. In that
same letter, Kennedy wrote, “If it is agreeable to you, a duplicate of the
aerial phenomena will be made and forwarded to you in lieu of the original. It
is desired to retain the original for analysis.”

Third,
on February 17, 1953, Major Robert C. Brown wrote, “A copy of the original
movie film taken by you near Tremonton, Utah, on 2 July 1952 is being
returned.”

On
November 17, 1953, Newhouse wrote to the Air Force, “About a year ago I mailed
for evaluation a 16mm Kodachrome original film to the Commanding Officer, Hill
Air Force Base in Utah. The film was of unidentified flying objects sighted by
my wife, my children and myself… I gave the Air Force permission to retain the
original for use in the investigation… My copy of the film has been damaged… If
the Air Force has completed its evaluation and has no further use for it, I
would appreciate the return of the original…”

On
January 27, 1954, Lieutenant Barbara Conners wrote, “The Air Technical
Intelligence Center is attempting to locate the original of a 35 mm [sic] film
of unidentified flying objects taken by a Mr. D. C. Newhouse near Tremonton,
Utah…” and then on February 23, 1954, CWO R. C. Schum wrote, “We are forwarding
as Inclosure [sic] 1 one copy of you Tremonton, Utah film...”

This
means the Air Force attempted to cooperate with Newhouse and that Newhouse had
given them permission to keep the original. They supplied a copy which Newhouse
ruined. He asked for the original, and the Air Force attempted to comply. We now
know that Newhouse’s discussion of all this with McDonald is in error.

But
more important than this trivia about originals and copies is the claim that
Newhouse shot footage on two separate rolls and that there was more than sixty
feet of film. The documentation, including that written by Newhouse himself does
not bear this out. The best estimate is that there was thirty feet of film.
There is a suggestion that the film lasted about 75 seconds, and with a 16 frame
per second use that works out to about thirty feet of film.

In
the end, there is no good evidence that Newhouse altered his story because the
original investigation lacked competence. There are hints in the September 1952
interview but it is not very clear. It can be argued that the description is of
the saucers but it could also be argued that the description is too vague to be
of any real value to determine what he meant. It could be argued that his
description was vague because he didn’t get a good, close up look at the
objects.

It
is clear that by 1954 Newhouse was providing a description that if accurate,
eliminates the sea gulls as an explanation. It also seems that others such as
Baker and Hartmann took the description from Ruppelt’s book but didn’t attempt
to verify the accuracy of the information by contacting Newhouse. In 1976, when
I talked to Newhouse, he verified that he had said that, which, of course,
doesn’t mean that the description was accurate, only that he said it to Ruppelt.

The
one point that seems to stand out here is that Newhouse made the comment in
1954 before the Air Force began pushing the sea gull explanation, but after the
Robertson Panel had determined, to their satisfaction, that birds was the
answer.

Here,
I suppose, it boils down to the nonsense about the length of the film and if
Newhouse switched magazines during the filming. Given the documentation
available, it seems that these new details do not reflect the reality of the
situation. Newhouse himself made it clear there was but a single roll of film,
that it was only fifty feet long, and we know that part of it was detached and
returned to him. If we wish to reject the case, this seems to be a good reason
to do so. It suggests that his memory of the event has been clouded by outside
influences.

I
will note here that I have not engaged in a discussion of what the film showed
or the various analyses of it. All of the investigators seem to find the
conclusions that fit their own biases. The Air Force originally said it wasn’t
balloons, airplanes and probably not birds. Robertson said it was birds and
dismissed it. The Navy said they couldn’t identify them. The Air Force then
said it was birds. Baker said he couldn’t identify the objects and Hartmann
said he could

So,
you look at the evidence, all the evidence, what the witnesses said and did and
what the film shows and decide for yourself what to believe. I said in the
beginning that this (the last post) was a case that provided some physical evidence.
That evidence could lead to proof of something unusual in the air and that
terrestrial explanations didn’t cover all the facts, if Newhouse saw the
objects close by and that they were saucer shaped. If he didn’t, then the evidence
is not as strong as it could be.

To
my mind, the case is not resolved simply because there is not a consensus for
the solution… but on the other hand, the evidence is not all that strong
either, which, unfortunately seems to be the situation in a large number of UFO
sightings.

Saturday, December 07, 2013

There
are two things that have happened recently that impact this blog. First is a
statement, again, by someone who should actually know better, that there is no
evidence that UFOs are alien craft. He asks, demands really, just one example
of a solid case for the UFO. Ignoring the fact that the debunkers have worked
wonders in marginalizing UFO reports by throwing all sorts of ridiculous
explanations for the sightings out there, some of which are contradictory,
there are some very good cases that have multiple chains of evidence and some
very good research attached to them. Any explanation, even if it doesn’t fit
the facts will do, just so long as they can claim the sighting is explained in
the mundane.

The
second point is that, for some reason, there has been an on-going dialogue into
the July 1952 UFO sighing near Tremonton, Utah. This is the tale of a Navy
warrant officer who filmed a formation of bright objects over the tiny Utah
town. The film was studied for months by a number of different organizations
but in January 1953, the objects were identified as birds by the CIA sponsored
Robertson Panel. (For a lengthy analysis of the motivations of the Robertson
Panel see Alien Mysteries, Conspiracies
and Cover-Ups, 155 - 174)

Here’s
the thing about this movie. Almost everyone talks about what is shown on the
film but few mention what the witnesses observed. In 1976, when I interviewed
Delbert Newhouse, the Navy photographer, he told me that he and his wife,
Norma, saw the objects at close range. He said they were large, disc-shaped things
that were brightly lighted. By the time he got the car stopped, dug his camera
out of the trunk and put film into it, the objects had moved off so that they
looked like bright blobs of white on a bright blue background. It was then that
he began filming the formation or cluster or mass, which was now much farther
away.

Sure,
you could say that in 1976 he had heard more than twenty years of comments
about the film, had been interviewed repeatedly and his story certainly could
have changed. Ed Ruppelt, the chief of Project Blue Book when the film was shot
in his Report on Unidentified Flying
Objects wrote:

After
I got out of the Air Force I met Newhouse and talked to him for two hours [in
1954, I believe]. I’ve talked to many people who have reported UFOs, but few
impressed me as much as Newhouse. I learned that when he and his family first
saw the UFOs they were close to the car, much closer than when he took the
movie. To use Newhouse’s own words, “If they had been the size of a B-29 they
would have been at 10,000 feet altitude.” And the Navy man and his family had
taken a good look at the objects – they looked like “two pie pans, one inverted
on the top of the other!” He didn’t just think
the UFO’s were disk-shaped; he knew
that they were; he had plainly seen them. I asked him why he hadn’t told this
to the intelligence officer who interrogated him. He said that he had. Then I
remember that I’d sent the intelligence officer a list of questions I wanted
Newhouse to answer. The question “What did the UFO’s look like?” wasn’t one of
them because when you have a picture of something you don’t normally ask what
it looks like. Why the intelligence officer didn’t pass this information along
to us I’ll never know.

So,
it’s clear from the beginning that Newhouse was telling those interested that
he had seen the objects up close. He said, from the beginning, that the objects
were disc shaped. I don’t think anyone, in those early days, thought to get
statements from the wife and the kids. They had the “important” information
from a naval officer and were satisfied with that. And even with that, the Air
Force didn’t bother to complete the investigation, failing to ask basic
questions or seemingly failed to ask them, and according to Ruppelt, didn’t
bother to pass along some of the answers.

In
the months that followed, the Air Force analyzed the film and when they
finished, they had no solution. Ruppelt wrote about that, saying, “All they had
to say was ‘We don’t know what they are but they aren’t airplanes or balloons,
and we don’t think they are birds.’”

When
the Air Force finished, the Navy took over, and they weren’t as restricted in
their praise as the Air Force. The Navy experts made a frame by frame
examination that took over a thousand man hours. The Navy concluded that the
objects were internally lights spheres that were not reflecting sunlight. They
also estimated the speed of the objects at 3,780 miles an hour which ruled out
aircraft of the time and birds of any time. They had no explanation for what
was seen on the film.

But,
as I say, never let an independent analysis stand when you can throw cold water
on it. Donald Menzel, the Harvard astronomer who never met a UFO sighting he
liked and who wasn’t above providing explanations as quickly as he could
regardless of the facts, claimed that it had been proven the film showed birds.
Such was not the case, except to those with closed minds but Menzel made the
claim anyway.

Dr.
R. M. L. Baker made an independent study of the film in 1955. He agreed with the
Air Force that the film didn’t show aircraft or balloons, and he didn’t think
it was some sort of airborne debris or radar chaff either. In disagreement with
Menzel, he found the bird explanation “unsatisfactory.”

Given
what we know about the University of Colorado UFO study led by Edward U. Condon
we could guess what they would conclude about this film. I won’t mention what
we now know about the reasons for the study or the directions Condon and his
team had been given by the Air Force (see the Hippler Letter March 21, 2007;
June 5, 2013) but that certainly influenced their conclusions.

William
Hartmann conducted the analysis for the Condon committee. He provided a quick
history of the investigations and did mention that during Baker’s investigation
Newhouse provided “…substantially the same account, with the additional
information: ‘When he got out [of the car], he observed the objects (twelve to
fourteen of them) to be directly overhead and milling about. He described them
as ‘gun metal colored objects, shaped like two saucers, one inverted of top of
the other.’…” (Which sort of reinforces the idea that Newhouse had not
radically altered his tale over time.)

Hartmann
then made his own analysis, finally concluding, “These observations give strong
evidence that the Tremonton films do show birds… and I now regard the objects
as so identified.”

But
this comes only after Hartmann rejected the statements by Newhouse seeing the
objects at close range. He wrote, “The strongest negative argument was stated
later by the witness that the objects were seen to subtend an angle of about
0.5 degrees and were then seen as gun metal colored and shaped like two saucers
held together rim to rim, but the photographs and circumstances indicate that
this observation could not have been meaningful.”

Or,
in other words, the statements of Newhouse were unimportant and I suspect the
reason being that if they were accepted, then the bird explanation was
eliminated. Birds are not shaped like two saucers held together rim to rim.

To
add to all this, Baker, in 1969, at a symposium sponsored by the American
Association for the Advancement of Science said that while Hartmann’s analysis
might be appealing “[The] motion [of the objects] is not what one would expect
from a flock of soaring birds; there are erratic brightness fluctuations, but
there is no indication of periodic decreases in brightness due to turning with
the wind or flapping. No cumulus clouds are shown on the film that might betray
the presence of thermal updraft… The motion pictures I have taken of birds at
various distances have no similarity to the Utah film.”

Here’s
where we are. This is a case of multiple chains of evidence. First is the
eyewitness testimony that has been virtually ignored. It is clear from what
Ruppelt and others say that some parts of the Project Blue Book file on the
case have disappeared. But that doesn’t change the fact that Newhouse and his
wife saw the UFOs and what they had to say about it is an important part of the
report. Hartmann rejected it almost out of hand.

The
second chain of evidence, which is independent of the first, is the film. It
provides something that can be taken into the lab and analyzed in various ways.
It seems to me that those without a bias (or in the case of the Air Force who
leaned toward finding any explanation which now suggests they were arguing
against their own interest) couldn’t positively identify the objects. Those who
know that there is no alien visitation however, found what they believed to be
the solution. The film showed birds.

Here’s the point, finally.
Those who know that there is no alien visitation claim that there is no
evidence to the contrary. I say the Tremonton, Utah film is evidence of
something unusual flying through the atmosphere and if evaluated from a neutral
position is not explained by birds. I will freely concede that eliminating the
accepted explanation does not lead directly to the extraterrestrial; I will
also note that we do have some evidence of an unusual event. I will further
note that if Newhouse’s description is accurate then there is no terrestrial
explanation for the sighting. Give it an unbiased reading, look at everything
through a neutral prism, and you have something that suggests there could be
alien visitation. It is, therefore, some of the evidence that many claim does
not exist

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Back
on July 30, I posted a column dealing with an alleged radar sighting aboard the
USS New York. The claim was that the
ship had fired on a UFO. The story appeared in a magazine back in 1945, and it
was suggested that the solution was Venus. Someone had seen Venus in the
daytime, thought it was some sort of a Japanese attack and they opened fire.
The ship’s navigator rushed up on deck and made the identification. To me, that
ended the story. At best it was an IFO.

But
as happens in the world of the UFO someone just didn’t like that solution and
without much in the way of information started an argument. I said at the time
I would look into it and have attempted to find out more. The National Archives
responded with a request for money and suggested it would take three months to
get what I needed. I hadn’t counted on the government shut down (what a
boondoggle that was, but I digress), but I now have the information based on
the deck logs of the ship.

These
logs were reviewed from January 1, 1945 through April 30, 1945 and there was
nothing to suggest any sort of UFO related event in that time frame. (And so
that I don’t have to explain this further, I used the generic UFO as opposed to
the more specific Foo Fighter which would be period appropriate.)

Here’s
what I know. The USS New York was in
dry dock from March 1 to March 19 and left Seeadler Harbor, Manus Island and
arrived at Ulithi Harbor on March 22. During the remainder of the month, the
ship was moved to Okinawa. The only entries that relate to firing the guns was
target practice which happened sometime each month, meaning there was no
regular schedule for it. There were notations for warfare engagements at
Okinawa in March.

There
were no entries referencing any unknown objects or Venus or anything that could
have been taken as such. In other words, there is no corroboration for this
tale from the official documentation available and even a loose interpretation
of what has been written does not allow for this.

This,
I believe, should resolve this. We have tales told by sailors which were
reported in magazines, but there is nothing from the ship to support this. I
suppose someone will say that the captain, embarrassed by his attack on Venus,
left it out of the deck logs. But we were searching for anything that would
match the facts and could find nothing. The logs should have provided a hint,
had there been one. There was nothing.

The
ball now resides with those who believe this to be a Foo Fighter or some sort
of anomaly. They need to provide some new and better documentation. Unless that
happens, I believe the case to be resolved.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

As I worked on a new book
about the UFO secrets found in various government files, I was scanning one of
the Project Blue Book microfilms, searching for a specific case. As the files
slipped by I thought I saw the words “Moon Dust.” I stopped and reversed course
much more slowly. On one of what they called the “project card” which was a
short summary of the case, I did see the term Moon Dust.

I located several
different project cards that contained “Moon Dust” references. In those few
files, I found indications that there was coordination between Blue Book and
Moon Dust, at least briefly. Several of the cases do reference Moon Dust though
they seem to have conventional explanations, at least according to the
information in the file.

The first of these cases
came from Ramey Air Force Base (which was not named for Roger Ramey of Roswell
fame), Puerto Rico on September 15, 1960. This file, which noted one of the
addressees on the message as Moon Dust, said:

Round object with a tail, size
reports vary from the size of a pea to half dollar, color reports vary from
bluish-white to dusky red. Tail aprox [sic] 3-5 times the size of the object.
No sound. Object reported to have broken up into several fireballs. One report
stated that object finally fell into ocean.

It is possible that this object
was a very slow meteor. However it is more probably a reentry of the 1960
Epsilon vehicle, parts of which reentered during Sep and Oct 1960. Epsilon had
an inclination of 64 [degrees], therefore the heading would be about 26
degrees.

A series of sightings
on September 21, 22, and 23, 1960, from Bermuda, were listed as “ATIC possible
Mon [sic] Dust. The witnesses are identified only as civilians. The case said,
“Reported sightings by local people of dull orange object on 21, 22, 23 Sep
[sic] accompanied by weird [sic] whirring sound, in evening.”

The original
message said that further investigation was being conducted but no follow up
information had been received. There was insufficient data for any sort of
scientific analysis and I suspect that if anything interesting was found, it
would not have become part of Blue Book. I also suspect that if nothing more
was found, no one bothered with a follow up report.

Another of these Moon
Dust cases took place on September 23, 1960, at Bitburg AB, Germany. The source
of the sighting was listed as “Moon Dust.” It said:

Luminous streak, like shooting
star, colors red and yellow. Object left a trail. Object appeared very suddenly
and was red in color, gradually changing to bright yellow. Appeared much larger
than meteor… Path momentarily broken and when reappeared was red in color, no
smoke but numerous sparks.

Description conforms to satellite
reentry. As to direction, color and breaking up. 1960 Lambda II (rocket body)
reentered this date. Case evaluated as satellite reentry based upon general
description, although duration of sighting was omitted.

This seems to be a
reasonable explanation, especially since there was documentation to back up the
solution. A few days later, on September 26, 1960, northeast of Bermuda, an
object that was yellowish-green and described as a “falling star or object” was
seen.

A teletype in the
Project Blue Book files, received on 26 Sep 60, said, “PD Moon Dust falling
star or object sighted by GULL special at 0527Z 26 Sep.” There was no
explanation or definition of Gull. It might have been the name of the mission
or the name of the witness. It was in sight for one second.

A Moon Dust case,
like these others, meaning with little information, came from Thule, Greenland.
A teletype message said, “Bright comet like object presumably MOONDUST sighted
at Thule AB Greenland… on 24 Sep 60. Estimated elevation less than ten degrees.
Direction: Appeared from south east and disappeared into the west… Observed
time 5 seconds.” It was written off as a possible meteor.

Finally in September,
a sighting was made in Wethersfield, England. The teletype message said,
“Flare-like appearance, light green to white in color. Travelling northwest to
southeast.” It was noted that the “Information too limited for valid
conclusion.”

These cases are of
importance because of the connection to Moon Dust. It proves that Moon Dust had
a UFO component but more interesting is the fact that after this point, that is
late 1960, I have found no other references to Moon Dust in the Project Blue
Book files. This doesn’t mean that someone else might not find such a
connection, just that I didn’t find one. My mission, at the time of the
discoveries was research on a book about the secrets in the government files,
so my research took in a wide range of government organizations. Just think how
vast that target is.

These were cases that
I stumbled across as I worked on one chapter of the book, but of course, will
be found in the chapter in which I deal with Moon Dust. I believe that research
will add to our knowledge of that project, taking us beyond what has been
reported in the past.